rves it, and his future
is assured." And to me, "My child, you belong to the king." And thus I
became a secretary in the ordnance survey. After five years of follies
and sufferings since I had left Geneva, I began to earn an honest
living.

_Our Little Circle_

It was in 1732, and I was nearly twenty-one years old, when I began the
life of the office. I lived with the little mother in a dismal house,
which she rented because it belonged to the financial secretary who
controlled her pension. The faithful Claude Anet was still with her, and
shortly after my return I learned accidentally that their relation was
closer than I had ever dreamed of. In a fit of temper his mistress had
taunted him outrageously. The poor fellow, in despair, had taken
laudanum; and madame, in her terror and distress, told me the whole
story. We brought him round, and things went on as before, but it was
hard to me to know that anyone was more intimate with her than myself.

My passion for music increased this year until I could hardly take
interest in anything else, and at last the work at the office grew so
intolerable to me that I determined to resign my place. I extorted an
unwilling permission from madame, said good-bye to my chief, and threw
myself into the teaching of music.

I soon had as many pupils as I needed, and the constant intercourse with
these ladies was very pleasant to me. But from the stories which I
carried home of our interviews the little mother apprehended dangers of
which I was not at that time conscious. The course which she took was a
singular one. She had rented a little garden outside the town, and here
she invited me to spend the day with her. Thither we went, and from the
drift of her conversation, which was full of good sense and kindliest
warnings, I gradually perceived the degree of her goodness towards me.
The compact involved conditions, and my answer was to be given on that
day week.

Thus was established among the three of us a society to which there is
perhaps no parallel. All our wishes, our cares, our interests were in
common. If one of us was missing from the dinner-table, or a fourth was
present, all seemed out of order. But our little circle was broken all
too soon. Claude Anet, on a botanical excursion, fell a victim to
pleurisy, and died, notwithstanding all her care. He had been a most
watchful economist of her pension and a restraint on her enterprises,
and his loss was felt not only in our